


take a chance we make it through the rain (did you lie when you drew your lines)

by sammyspreadyourwings



Series: Bingo 2020 [9]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Depressed Brian May, Depression, Hurt Brian May, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Multi, No Character Death, Polyamory, Sad Brian May, Self-Harm, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26222329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyspreadyourwings/pseuds/sammyspreadyourwings
Summary: John has always wondered who caused the marks on his arm and why they kept appearing. He grows up wondering if he is even going to be able to meet his soulmate.
Relationships: John Deacon/Brian May, John Deacon/Brian May/Roger Taylor
Series: Bingo 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863202
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37
Collections: Dork Lovers Server Challenges





	take a chance we make it through the rain (did you lie when you drew your lines)

**Author's Note:**

> Please Read the Tags. Triggering content for some.  
> Bingo Prompt: Guitar Strings.

The first bruise comes when John is twelve. It is bold against his pale skin, an angry red that puckers purple at the end. He stares at the even line across his wrist and wonders what could cause something like that. When his mom sees it and he starts crying he imagines that it can’t be anything good, his mom only cries in front of him when his dad starts talking about what they do when he is gone.

John doesn’t understand what he means because his dad hasn’t gone into his work for the past year, and he used to travel a lot so maybe they want him to do it again.

But then his mom is taking his arm into her hands and rubbing over the mark. It feels wrong and he pulls his arm back, wrapping his hand around it. She pulls him into a hug and then promises he can have extra sweets.

After that, more lines appear on his wrist. They get redder and angrier and even him touching sends sparks down his arms, but even in the late August heat, he wears long sleeves.

The only time that no one comments on it when he has to wear a crisp button-up and his suit he wears to the big church services as they bury his dad. John can’t help but wonder what those marks are and why everyone looks at him sadly and then sadder when they see the marks.

John can’t help but wonder the cause of these strange lines, because his soulmate had rarely left a mark on him until then – none of the scuffed knees or elbows that John left on them. The only other consistent marking, which made John giddy, is the bruises on the tips of his fingers. He knows that he leaves the same marks buried under the newly forming callous that his soulmate should have.

They both play guitar. John wonders if they play bass or if it's acoustic or if it's electric. He wonders if they could play in a band together – how well they play – he feels the pricks of pain more frequently than he picks up his guitar.

Late at night, he’ll place tiny kisses on the tips of his fingers, congratulating his soul mate on their hard work and dedication to an instrument. He knows it is a little dumb, but he can’t help but think that the marks on his wrist are from deep pain in his soulmate. The gentle pressure won’t translate and while John could press on it with his nail, which would ache, he doesn’t want his soulmate to wonder.

He is in the middle of his nighttime ritual of pressing kisses to the tips of his finger when he curls into himself and clutches his wrist again. John gasps and turns his head so that he is biting into his pillow to muffle any sounds of pain. When the intensity fades, he rubs his face against his sheets to clear the tears in his eyes.

John clicks his light on, praying that his mother had gone to bed and she isn’t going to do a check on him. He pulls his sleeve up and stares at the crisscross of angry red marks. John frowns as he follows the curve of the clearest mark, he twists his arm around and he realizes that he knows what probably could have caused this.

It looks like the time that his guitar string had snapped when he tuned it too sharp. John stares at his welted arm, one would make sense – but there is almost a dozen. He skips his finger down them and bites down on his lip, each flash of sadness on his mother’s face when she sees his wrist tumbles to the front of his brain. There isn’t anything that would leave such distinct lines in such a random pattern.

His soulmate is doing this to themself.

* * *

The marks stop for almost a year after that night. John watches them slowly heal and John can’t stop the twinge of his heart. They aren’t white so he knows his soulmate survived but while he is happy that they’ve stopped hurting themself he doesn’t know if that means worst things are to come.

Eventually, the bruises on his fingers return they’re bold like breaking new skin. John feels the occasional bruise pop up on his body, but they seem more accidental, running into a table here or the corner of a wall there. He feels the pressure ease on his chest, maybe his soulmate had gotten the help they need.

John is at his band practice drinking their contrabanded beer when he feels a sharp pain across his abdomen. He drops the bottle to the side – it shatters – and folds his arms to his stomach and presses tightly. The singer approaches them but he holds his hand up and breathes heavily.

“Soulmate thing,” he breathes.

His bandmates look between them and he coughs stranding up straight, or as straight as the odd sensation will allow him. He ducks into his friends how and then bolts to the bathroom. John fumbles with the buttons of his shirt, popping one off.

“Sorry mum,” he mumbles.

Looking down at his stomach, he watches as the bruise spreads outward. It looks someone had spread red paint across his stomach. He feels his throat start to ache and there is another bruise there, this one starts as a dark purple. John pokes at the bruise and hisses.

His two fingers turn the skin white, but instead of fading back to an angry red, it remains white. John flattens his back against the wall and watches the white spread outward, in the middle a line slowly forms. It puckers like an old scar and he leans forward gripping the sink.

John knows his mother has a scar-like this, running down both sides of her back, over her lungs. John knows his father had died of an illness of the lungs. He shakes and trembles but then the spreading stops. There is an angry red ring but the scar doesn’t spread.

For now, his soulmate is alive.

* * *

The scar never heals but the bruises go away. John panics thinking that his soulmate had died after all but then his fingers start turning red again and John lets out a breath he hadn’t known for an entire month if his soulmate had survived whatever happened.

* * *

Things get better. The bruises are random feeling and his fingers are always covered in some sort of red, either from his practicing or from his soulmate’s. John ignores the nasty scar on his stomach and puts his head down to study. If he scores well enough then he can get into a good uni in London, and while he does want to get his degree he is more eager to drop himself in the music and club scene that he can’t get in Oadby.

Not much longer after his exams finish does, he feels a sharp flash on his wrist. John rolls his arm over and there is another mark curling around his forearm and onto the back of his hand. He frowns and rubs it, hoping that it is a strange marking and not the start of the strange patterns from his youth.

The patterns are back or will be when he notices a week later on his arm (the one he has always assumed is the cleaner one) and notices a thin line. A second one starts to appear but this one veers off, right over the second mark. John tilts his head. Each time before the lines had been almost machine-like in their straightness.

John frowns at the change and rubs his mark and then goes back to finishing his applications. He doesn’t know what else to do. When he finally meets his soulmate then he’ll be able to stop all these strange markings and finally know what is causing them.

He knows, it isn’t hard to guess, but maybe there is a chance that he is wrong, and the scar on his stomach wasn’t from them trying to kill themself.

* * *

John doesn’t know why he is auditioning at all. The band is good, he has heard them and they’re the talk of the local circuit. He hasn’t played bass seriously since coming to uni, but here he is sitting in some random music call with his bass case between his legs watching as each musician before him leaves in varying states of hope.

He pushes himself up when it's his turn, running his fingers through his hair in a last attempt to make it presentable. John stumbles over his heels but he manages to right himself before he gets into the room. Apparently, it’s a very informal audition. The singer, although the name escapes him, is smoking a cigarette while lounging across a slightly raised platform.

Roger, he knows the drummer’s name because of the man girls that yell it during a show is leaning heavily against the guitarist who is smiling fondly even as he tries to push the blond off. He tries to not stare at the matching hickeys on their throats, the one on the guitarist is the bright red of a mirror bruise.

John hums in surprise, it explains a lot of how their sound meshes so well. They’re soulmates. He tries to not feel too disappointed, like the girls he had wanted to be in Roger’s bed – or the guitarists wondering about those long legs. The singer too, on occasion but he suspects that happens with everyone when they see him perform.

“Name?” Roger prompts.

He blushes, “John Richard Deacon.”

“Play us something,” the singer says, “Bri will jump in when he gets a feel.”

“Me? Why not Rog?”

“Look at your hands darling.”

John looks too, they’re bright red on the palm and he looks at Roger to confirm that they’re blistered. They must have been matching the bassist to the drums. Which makes sense, they must switch it up in the middle to see how fast the bassist can adopt. It’s not difficult with a good drum player but a guitarist – one that he has noticed as some trouble staying in tempo – is a different matter.

“Bri” pushes Roger off who flops back dramatically with a whine before propping on his elbow. He bends down to unlock his bass case and takes a deep breath. John runs a quick check to make sure it hasn’t gotten out of tune.

It sounds good. He taps his foot and then jumps into the first riff that pops into his mind. Quickly the guitar weaves between and settles. The music sounds good, but the guitar slows down and John pauses a beat and falls into the slower tempo. They play this game for several more minutes.

John fumbles, wincing as his softened callous splits. He looks up to see Roger frowning at his finger. The pain dulls as he keeps playing, but he can see the blood slicking on the string. Eventually, the guitar stops and John finishes out the stanza before looking up at the others.

Roger is still staring at his finger, John flexes his fingers out. There is an echo of pain underneath the throbbing of his fingers. The singer has sat upright and has his head tilted in curiosity. Bri is resting on his heels, looking back at Roger.

A shiny spot on Brian’s hand catches his attention. John realizes after a second that it’s a scar. It curves down the back of his palm and towards this thumb. He flexes his fingers again and then looks back at Roger.

“That’s brilliant,” the singer finally grins, “truly inspired.”

John looks at him and smiles, “thank you.”

* * *

He wakes up thinking that it’s because he needs to use the restroom. John rolls over, frowning when Freddie isn’t in his bed but then John remembers the singer promising that he would be back in the morning after finding some bloke in the bar.

As he pushes himself up, he yelps as there is a sear up his arm. John scratches at it before reaching over and flicking the light on. Three angry marks appear under his elbow. He rubs them.

Something thuds loudly against his wall. John jumps and pushes himself to his feet, hurrying out of his room in case Brian had fallen, both Roger and Brian had gone heavy on the pints – Roger didn’t make it to their shared room instead burrowing into the blanket nest on the couch. John keeps his hand on his arm while he bumps the door open.

Brian has his back against their shared wall, his fingertips pressing against a spot under his elbow. John opens his mouth to ask what’s happening but as Brian drags his fingers down his arm John hisses at the burn but he fights through it to grab Brian’s hand before he finishes bringing it down his arm.

John stares at the six lines, overlapping and just deep enough that the skin has broken. Brian looks up, but his eyes are wide in a panic – below the angry red scratches John looks at the thin white lines underneath. He can’t say he never noticed the scars – Brian never let him get close enough to examine them. Even as his stomach churns, John knows he had done it to himself. Is still doing it to himself as he looks at the tiny beads of blood.

“Shhh,” John soothes when Brian starts sobbing, “shhh, take a breath.”

“You’ll hate me.”

“I could never,” John murmurs, happy that Brian hadn’t made the connection yet.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

John feels so out of his depth. Brian is deep in a panic and his fingers keep flexing as though he wants to keep scratching himself. He shifts his grip and laces their fingers together. Brian flexes his fingers into John’s hand. It hurts but it is better than what he had been doing before.

“What do you need?”

“I’m sorry,” Brian repeats.

He presses his lips together and pulls him up. Brian offers no resistance and John guides Brian out of his room and towards the living room. They need to clean the scratches, but John doesn’t know how to act around Brian right now. Roger does, or he thinks that the blond should.

John turns a corner too sharply, and his elbow collides against the wall.

“Ow,” he groans trying to shake out the electricity in his fingers.

They keep walking still where Roger has sat up and is rubbing at his arm. John tilts his head towards Brian and Roger blinks before he jumps up, pulling Brian’s hands out of John’s and taking him to the couch.

“Oh, Bri,” Roger murmurs sadly.

John reaches past him to push Brian’s sweaty hair out of his face. Roger turns towards him with an open mouth before his eyes focus on the lines etched down his forearm. He shakes his head, relieved at least that he has a second confirmation but now isn’t the time.

“I’ll go get the ointment.”

* * *

The next morning is awkward. At least between him and Roger – Brian is balled up tightly and asleep, peacefully for the most part.

“Have you known long?” Roger asks over a steaming cup of tea.

“Last night,” John says, “I hadn’t had anything else that I could point to.”

Roger leans back against the doorframe and stares to the crease where the ceiling meets the wall. He spins the teacup in his hands, “except for the pain on the tips of your fingers.”

“Except for that,” John nods and takes a sip.

“And you show up on me,” Roger nods, “that makes sense.”

“Does it?”

Roger shrugs, “it’s not unheard of.”

“And how do we explain this to Brian?” John asks.

Roger takes a sip and taps his nail against the rim of the cup. He takes his eyes away from the crease and stares at John, “is that what you want to ask?”

“It is at the moment.”

“I had to stop him once, too, before.”

John thinks about the night were the lines had crossed over for the first time and then the curved X shape in the middle of Brian’s cleaner arm. He doesn’t know how he didn’t put the pieces together – not that they are soulmates but that Brian needs support.

“He is good at hiding it,” Roger says, “always has been. And he’s gotten help for it in the past.”

“It’s gotten better,” John says.

Roger stares at him with his lips pressed together and John realizes what he says. He grimaces and takes a too big mouthful for tea, causing it to burn his tongue. John isn’t surprised to see Roger sticking his tongue out and having a blotchy red mark across it.

After he manages to avoid choking John bites down on his bottom lip. Roger reaches forward and pulls it free with the pad of his thumb.

“Stop that.”

“Well that confirms it, doesn’t it?”

Roger shrugs and looks back to the crease between the wall and the ceiling.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing that Brian says when he wakes up and sees John sitting at his desk.

“What are you apologizing for?” John says.

Brian sits up and crosses his legs and offers a small shrug, “shouldn’t have had to see that.”

“I would have either way,” John replies.

Hazel eyes meet his, they’re foggy with depression but there is a furrow to his brow. John licks his lips as he feels a spark of pain on his cheek. He thinks about using that, but then he slowly lifts the sleeve of his sweater, displaying the six lines.

Brian pales and stares at the lines, “oh.”

“Yeah,” John says.

“Does Roger know?”

John winces at the roughness in his voice. The blond had stepped out to get what they all know to be one of Brian’s favorite depression meals.

“I show up on him.”

“Oh,” Brian clears his throat and then licks his lips, “that makes sense.”

“Does it?”

Brian shrugs.

John leans forward and places his hands over his face. It’s been years of watching these marks appear on his arms and other parts of his body. It’s been a year of watching one of his bandmates struggle to tread the water he loves so much. There are so many things that he thought to say to his soulmate, and he realizes now how all childishly naive they had been.

Promising to keep his soulmate happy enough that they don’t want to break their skin – Brian _is_ happy, he has Roger and is doing what he loved.

“What happened to your stomach?” John says instead.

He had never figured it out, and now knowing that Brian is the one leaving the marks he is even more confused because Brian doesn’t have any scars on his abdomen. None that were serious enough to leave the white puckering John has to live with, the mark John had to hide from any partners otherwise they’d misunderstand.

“My stomach?”

“Yeah,” John tilts his head.

“Nothing…unless,” Brian looks away tears springing to his eyes, “did it turn white?”

“It did.”

Brian pulls his legs up to his chest and presses his cheek to his knees looking out of his bedroom window. John feels a twist in his heart, and whatever Brian is going to say he doesn’t want him to say.

“Not even Roger knows about that.”

“And now that he knows and has seen it.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” John says, for however unintentional, he has disclosed pain that wasn’t his to tell.

“S’okay,” Brian mumbles.

“It isn’t.”

He hears the soft rustling of plastic bags. John turns his head to look in the hallway. Brian hums and he sees him unfold himself from the tight position and swings his legs over the side of his bed.

“Well…” Brian lets out a long breath.

John nods.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, leave your thoughts and comments below!
> 
> Abrupt end is abrupt.


End file.
